


How It Happened (It Had To Happen) (OLD)

by Blizardstar



Series: TazSwap AU (OLD) [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But the breaks felt right where they are, Gen, Tazswap AU, The chapters are going to be pretty short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 12:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizardstar/pseuds/Blizardstar
Summary: Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswapEDIT: I have since creating this decided I wanted to make my own separate au from Trainwreckgenerator's. I'm planning to rewrite a lot of these fics to fit my new changed ideas but I didn't want to delete these things I wrote so I'm separating these into a separate series from my new rewritten AU. Go check the other series for the new version! This version will not be finished, but the new version will be mostly the same but with better writing and new headcanons!





	1. Who?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their century long journey is done, everything should be peaceful now. But it isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswap

It wasn’t really a vote, not in the sense that one idea was decided to be superior and chosen over the other. Lucretia’s plan was the harder one to undo, if it didn't work or if something went wrong, so it became Plan B. She didn't like it, but the votes had it; they would go with the Relics. Each of them would create a powerful magical artifact and after catching the light they would distribute the relics around that world to dilute the Light of Creation's power. Everything seems to go perfectly. It's only a few more cycles before they're able to catch it and the light is easily divided, combined with their artifacts, and placed around the world. The Hunger's scouts don’t arrive. They did it. They've saved this world and all others that would have come after.

But then people begin to find the relics. And very, very quickly they all realize they have made a horrible mistake. Cities turned to circles of black glass, drinking water turned to gold and entire islands sunk into the sea. Souls ripped from their bodies, massive armies conjured out of nothing and barriers cast so powerful they block out _everything_ ; sound, sunlight, _air_. Taako is the first to decide that he's had enough of all of it and begins the search for his stone, setting off in the dead of night and leaving only a two word promise that would go unfulfilled. After his departure, the rest of the team decides that it was time for Lucretia’s plan. They begin to gather information, trying to find their relics before any more lives could be lost. In a moment of impulse Captain Davenport makes an executive decision. He cannot let this plane be cut off from the rest of existence, that would hurt it far more than any war. He steals Lucretia’s journals and carefully marks out what information could be kept and leaving what had to be erased before feeding the journals to Fisher.

And they forget.

A disoriented Hecuba looks up from her card game at the strange woman sitting across the table. Neither of them know her name. A desperate Kravitz has Lup blast him away from the map table, covered with leads marking the possible locations of both the relics and Taako. He’s already burned half to death before he falls off the Starblaster, but he still manages a grateful expression through the pain. Lup falls to her knees not knowing who that man she just killed was or _why_ she killed him, or even where she was. Julia notices Lucretia’s open door and goes to investigate, having worked on a new duck for Fisher. The last thing she sees before being overwhelmed by the static is her Captain of 100 years tearfully and frantically apologizing as the last of Lucretia’s journals is consumed Fisher. He's so sorry, he had to do it, _he's so sorry, he couldn't let you all damage the plane like that, h̨͓̬͖e̱̱ͅ'̘̣̜̱̞̙̺s͚̝̩̲̫̖̱ ̹̤͕̻͕͔̦ṣ̲̼ǫ ͙̱s̞̪̞̰̯̯o̴r͇̭͔̘͡r̦̣̱y̢, h̵̜̳̫̙e̲'̧͚̮͚s̞͕͠ ̵͙̰̹͔̹͖̲k̲̠̭̲̘͉n̦o̴w̩̩̲͉̠͎s̴̭̺̮̗̘ ̳͖̦ͅy̪̖̻͉̪̥̱o̝̬͉̯̫̠u̮ͅ ̞̗͖̪͟c̤a̳̯̱̞̦n͙͈̜̗̠'̪̟̰̞̭̩̺t͚͚̮̣̖̝ ̪̦̮̣̰͘f͍͍̟̭͙or̘̮̦͖g̛̝i̜̯̗̬̻̲͎v͖̳̪̥͇͎e͉͚̣̺̮ ̘̗̟͙̙h̶̻i̻͞m̸̤̞̳͚, h̵̫̯͍ͅe̦̦̱̙͉̕͠'͕̣̩̲͖̬̙s̸҉̼̼̲ ̢͚̱͖̺͔̜̕ͅs̝̝̗͖̗o̗̞̟͖͎ ͝҉̰͍s͚͕͔̗̥̲͖̰͘o̫̩͍̜̝̗̯ͅr̴͉͎̳̼̙̮̦̹͟r̴̥̜͔͕̟͖̙͖y͏̣͔ͅ, ḩ͔̻̗̠̬̹̟̩̞̳̣͜͟͡e̷̢̨͎͓̟̬͖̯̜'̵̸͕̼͓̻̜̙͇̠̭̩͍͉̝͘͜͠s̬̪͍͈͍̤͈͔͎̖̟̞͝͡ ̕͘͞͏̪̺̘̝͖̖̭͙̩̳s̵̵̨͙͔̻̥̱̼̫̺̘͔͎͠͞ǫ̳͙͈̘̻̦̯̱̹̞̣͜͠ͅͅ ̷͈͙̩͔͢͠ͅs̶̭̪̰̦̹͟͞ͅͅo̷̸̡̮̪̦̗r̵̸͎̭̬̥̤̕͡r̙͚̘̟̖̲͡y̷̢̨̗̗̻̬̳̖̬̺̟̩̠̱̠̹̻̳_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 10/23/17: I fixed this chapter up and actually added quite a bit, so if you read it before you may want to read it again!


	2. It Doesn't Go Smoothly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswap

Davenport had planned ahead of time where he would take them. A beachfront community of dwarves for Hecuba, where she could finally settle down. She had talked about always wanting to live on a beach before, having grown up in a Pan commune near one. The similarities between this world and their home planet never ceased to amaze him as he had managed to find a dwarven beachfront community with an active church of Pan within it. They welcomed her with open arms, surprising him with the knowledge that the Roughridges were distantly related to a family currently living in the community: the Rockseekers. Julia was next. He found her an apprenticeship with the best carpenter in the land in a place called Raven's Roost. She'd love the thrill of living in a town nestled high in the cliffs, maybe she'd even learn to carve more than ducks! _He tries not to think about the duck that had clattered to the floor when she had entered Lucretia's room to see him feeding the journals to Fisher, with mixed results._ He had the most trouble with Lup, because what home could ever be able to contain _Lup_? He eventually decided that he would never be able to set her down somewhere, so he set her up with a wagon all decked out for combination cooking and pyrotechnics travelling show. She got along with a crowd like, well, like a house on fire. It was awful to lose Kravitz. The concert hall really would have benefited from his music and he would have been happy there, even if he was alone. He’d have to keep an eye out for him and/or Taako returning in lich form and interfering with the new lives of the girls. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted the two lovers to find each other or not.

The hardest was Lucretia. As he went through the journals he realized just how much of her _self_ she had put into her writing and was worried about the effect this would have on her compared to the others. He tried to push it out of his mind, assuring himself that she would be fine too, but his fears were realized when he came onto the bridge after helping Julia too her bed to find a disoriented Hecuba still trying, even in her state, to console a panicked Lucretia sat curled up on the floor with her knees to her chest, grasping at her short hair as she desperately tried to remember _something, anything_. Lucretia had always been shy and reserved, even a bit jumpy at times, but never had he seen her so utterly _terrified_. He decided in that moment that he would scrap his plans for Lucretia and that she would stay on the Starblaster with him where he could keep on eye on her until she was in a more stable state. The grand library could wait.

He spends the the time it takes him to take the other girls to their new homes coming up with a story to tell her. It takes her that long before she was back to a state where she could talk, but once she can she has lots of questions. She's still jumpy when he approaches her, but why shouldn't she be? She has no idea _who_ she is or _where_ she is or _why_ she's there. He's grateful for his small stature making him less intimidating as he tells her what he knows. His name is Captain Davenport and they're on his ship, the S̨͠҉t̴̷͡ą̵̷̢͘r͏̴b̶̶͞l̢̧̨̕͡a̶̷̧s̛͝t̸̕e͘r̛͘͞, er, just his ship. He had found her unconcious on the side of the road, and that she must have some kind of amnesia. She doesn't have the energy to think about why a ship would find her along a road, her whole head feels like it's going to burst with some kind of strange buzzing. He offers to give her a place to stay until her memories return. She accepts, not knowing anywhere else she, whoever she was, would go.

He almost feels glad that someone would stay with him, that he wouldn't be alone, and the guilt from that feeling overwhelms any feeling of joy he would have gotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 10/23/17: Fixed the writing and added a whole lot more!


	3. Moving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia's not an idiot, and he knows it.

He would have to find a new place to live.

The Starblaster had been home to them all for so long but he couldn’t have Lucretia wandering around and finding the others rooms, _especially_ not her own. After all, she was still Lucretia, even if she didn’t know what that meant anymore, and Lucretia wasn't an idiot. She would know something was up if she found anything, and he wasn't about to keep her locked up in a room all day unless she was under his supervision. _It's not like she's going to be doing much more than that anyway, with the state she's in now_ a little voice in his head says, and he blocks it out. He had to do it, or else the entire plane would have been doomed. She'll get better soon, he knows it, and when she does she'll be back to her normal curious, inquisitive self, even more so now than ever. He had to be able to hide the Starblaster.

So he enlists the help of the most scientifically and technologically accomplished family in this world, the Millers. They help him build a secret floating sky base and a secret hangar for the Starblaster within it. It's small at first, disguised as a cloud rather than an entire moon, and relying more on Davenport's illusion magic to keep it hidden than a lunar facade. It just needed to be big enough for himself and Lucretia, and in a place that would keep her far out of the range of any of the relics. The maneuverability of the base also allows him to keep a close eye on the relics' activity.

When the Bureau is formed, the base is simply expanded to accomodate a whole force. Davenport indoctrinates the Millers with Fisher's tank water in as thanks for helping with the expansion and the initial construction, then erases the knowledge of a singular moon on this planet from existance. And suddenly there's always been two. That's one of the times he truly feels the weight of the power Fisher has to make people forget, and it frightens him, just a little. It's not the last, or the first, time he would feel that weight either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's pretty short, but to make up for it I went back and edited the first two chapters and ended up adding a whole lot more to them! So go read those if you're still craving more Tazswap AU fic!
> 
> Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswap


	4. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start to get better, but not really. Davenport realizes that Lucretia isn't quite Lucretia anymore, and makes some mental adjustments for both of their benefit.

It takes a while for the old Lucretia to return. The first signs show a few months in, when her hands begin to feel restless as she listens intently to young Lucas excitedly explain the history of elevators on this world and the other numerous scientific and technological advancements his family has made while Davenport and Maureen work out the details of their agreement. Davenport notices this and "gifts" her a blank journal and pen (taken from the supply in her old room) so that she can write down notes about things that interest her. Only one of each though, and even though she can write with either hand just fine, something still feels off, and her unused hand still twitches when she writes.

She does much better once she is given the journal. She fills the first one up within days and Davenport can't help but chuckle as he gets her another. Years in the future she will tell the Tres Rowdy Girls (as they'll eventually be known) that it helped her to fill those first few journals with information as quick as she could because it comforted her to write down everything she knew and learned so that way if she ever lost her memory again she could simply read from her journal and know who she was! (If Davenport had ever heard her say this, the cruel irony would have weighed heavy on him.) She begins to become more vocal about her ideas again. She’s still not too assertive, but then again, Lucretia never was, even before. Gently steering Davenport in different directions in his research and exploration, pointing out possibilities of what to do and where to go next. He begins, jokingly at first, to call her his Director and after a while the nickname sticks, eventually becoming her official B.o.O.B. title. It's more than just a title though, it's a name and that helps her more than anything else. Davenport being able to call her something other than "you," and she herself now having something more than just "me, " helps them both immensely and allows some form of healing to really begin, the biggest hole having finally been filled.

He tried at first, of course, to teach her her own name again, but all she heard was static. "Lucretia" really was gone now, turned to static, but his dear Director was here with him now, and Pan be damned if he wasn't going to help her get back as close to "normal" as he could.

She still had a long way to go though. The Director had forgotten all of the skills Lucretia had learned on the Starblaster, but she had also forgotten many of the skills she had learned before then. Given that she was barely twenty when they first departed their home planet, any amount of those years taken away was going to mess her up pretty bad. Lucretia was the most powerful abjuration wizard Davenport had ever met, but the Director can hardly cast anything more than a mage hand. It's not only magic either. The Director likes to watch over his shoulder as he plans out flying trajectories or maps the locations of the relics as they trade hands during the war down below. When she points to some calculations that should have been easy for her and asks what they mean, he realizes that while Lucretia had been one of the top graduating students of her class and a member of Fantasy NASA, the Director barely knew the quadratic formula. Over the first few months with the Director, Davenport realizes just how much he would have to teach her again. He and Hecuba used to joke about how much older they were than the rest of the crew, even the two elves, and occassionally took it as far as occassionally taking on a pseudo-parental role over the rest of the IPRE. This comparison is a reoccuring thought in his head as he starts planning out their lessons. Magic comes easiest to him so it's the first he starts teaching and she's still incredibly good at it, learning new spells almost quicker than Davenport can decide which ones to teach her. Math and Science come next, and she's as bright as she always has been. He didn't know any of the history of this world beyond the Relic Wars and she seemed to still be just as eloquent a writer as she alwas had been, so he devotes less time to those subjects. After that come more basic things like cooking and how to maneuver the base in case of an emergecy. Davenport is no Taaco, but they taught him enough during their hundred year journey that he can pass some basic knowlege to the Director. At least she wont have to survive off of prepackaged food and Fantasy Pop-Tarts if he ever had to leave her alone.

Learning helps even more than the journals did by themselves. She's just as attentive and inquisitive as she always has been. She fills her journals up quickly and Davenport is glad that Lucretia had such a large supply of blank journals in case they ran into a series of worlds without a system of writing in a row back during their journey. Filling her head with new information seems to help the Director cope with having lost so much that she had before. Davenport thinks would teach her everything in the world if he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswap
> 
> Other notes:  
> Lucas seems young to me during the Crystal Kingdom, in his early to mid 20's (I don't remember if Griffin ever gave an age based desription for him) so that would put him in his teens during the 12 years.  
> Can you tell I like the "Merle/Dav are the IPRE's pseudo-parents" headcanon?  
> Also from this point Lucretia will really mostly be refered to as "the Director" because that's all she knows herself as and eventually over the next few years Davenport gets into the habit of calling her the Director as well, and "Lucretia" feels more like an entirely different person.


	5. Change of Heart?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davenport begins to have second thoughts.

The Relic Wars rage on below, showing no signs of ever stopping, and Captain Davenport begins to question whether it was all worth it. What use was saving a planet if it destroyed itself from the inside anyway? So he makes a decsion, and feeds a list of the Relics to the Voidfish. The fighting slows but the Relics still spring up now and again, their destruction just as terrible as ever. So he decides to collect them. Not to cast the barrier, no. The harm that barrier would do to this plane was still worse than the occassional destruction of an entire town, and he wasn't about to go back on the very principle he started out with. No, he and ~~Lucretia~~ the Director would be able to resist the thrall of the Light, so he would collect them and keep them safe.

He's been tracking the Relics the entire time but reports on a Relic's current location weren't always the most reliable, people wanting to keep it hidden for their own use. Once the wars began to slow, tracking their movement became even harder, people no longer knowing what these powerful objects were, much less being able to flaunt them about by name. He starts with his own creation, the Occulus. It's easy enough to find and he retrieves it, confident that the rest would come easy too. He spends a long time searching for the other Relics before recieving a strange, gaudy flyer, obviously magically personalized just for him, from a place called Wonderland, advertising a grand prize for competing in some kind of game. The prize offered to him is Kravitz' relic: the Animus Bell. The place seems suspicious from the get-go but as the best lead he has, he sets out for it anyway. After all, he's one of the creators of the Grand Relics and one of the most powerful illusion wizards in existance, how much harm could this place do to _him?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit short this time, more of a transitional chapter. I'm thinking of maybe uploading one of the other single chapter Tazswap fics later today to make up for it, what do you guys say?
> 
> Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswap


	6. Static

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Director has many questions, most of which Davenport wishes he could answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, my longest chapter yet! I'm really proud of this one. More notes at the end to avoid any spoilers!
> 
> Whoops! This weekend got away from me so this chapter is a day late sorry! Hope you enjoy!

The Director has lots of questions, but she doesn't get a lot of answers.

Captain Davenport (who still likes to be called that, even though they're not on a ship anymore) is always tracking _something_ on that map of his. She asks and he tries to answer her but all that comes out of his mouth is static. At first she's worried it has something to do with whatever messed up her memory, but he assures her that she's not _supposed_ to understand him. She has even more questions now, but the answers to all of them are static too.

She learns that a lot of things about Captain Davenport are static. Where he's from, how he learned to sail, how he got a _flying ship_. They get in the habit where if one of the Director's questions can't be answered, he just says "static" instead of trying to explain. This works just fine for the Director, she's getting just as much information as she would have without all the horrible disorientation and headaches she gets from hearing the actual static.

One day Captain Davenport tells her that he's going to a place called Wonderland. The only explanation he can give is that it has to do with the Map Static. She's a bit scared of being left alone but he promises that he won't be gone long. Nothing can touch her up in the sky anyway, and she can take care of herself for a few days. He trusts her, and those words finally put her at ease. He takes his ship and heads planetside.

It's almost two weeks before he comes back and in that time it takes everything in the Director to convince herself not to cast featherfall and jump down to go look for him. She doesn't even know where this "Wonderland" is, and there's no way _she_ would be able to defeat anything that had been able to hold up Captain Davenport this long.

When he does come back, he looks so different that it startles her out of her initial instinct to run over and hug him. He's beat up and visibly exhausted but the biggest change still remains long after he rests up and lets himself heal. His hair and mustache are now streaked with gray, his face wrinkled and tired. He spends his time healing telling her what happened; the sacrifices, the fighting. How, as a gnome, he was forced to give up his youthful appearance (rather than his physical age). He gets especially choked up when explaining the thing called "Trust or Forsake" and can't even get out how he eventually managed to escape without breaking down. When she inquires further, the only answer he can give is "static." 

She wonders and questions what could have _possibly_ made him feel like he had to go through that, what drove him to push through such a place, but no matter how much he wants to be able to tell her, to explain himself, all he can give her is static.

He spends a lot of time on the ship in the months following, messing with something deep in the rooms she isn't allowed in. Until one day, he brings her down into one of those rooms and what he shows her is more amazing than anything else in her journals. A massive jellyfish with what looks like galaxies swirling inside of it's bell. Davenport gives her a small vial of the creature's tank water and asks her to drink it. She does and she _remembers_. The static clears and she can see the map clearly now when she thinks of it, she remembers these powerful relics and the destruction and terrible wars that surrounded them. It's all overwhelming and Captain Davenport has to catch her as she stumbles under the weight of all of these memories crashing down on her but once she comes to her senses again, he explains everything. This creature is called the Voidfish, and it has the power to erase the knowledge of any information it eats from the entire world. He didn't show her it sooner because he was afraid that she would be frightened of it and it's ability to erase memories, given her own experiences with memory loss. But he finally felt it was time for her to know about his mission. Years ago, he was a part of a powerful group of wizards called the Red Robes, and they were the ones to create the seven Grand Relics. They were made to be incredible works of magic, but their power and thrall was so great that when they tried to show them to the world they were stolen, and a great war broke out for control of them. There were several groups within the Red Robes themselves, one group that wanted the relics to remain out in the world as proof of the power of their creations, while others wanted to retreive the relics to use their power for themselves. The group Davenport was part of wanted to gather the relics to destroy them, or at the very least lock them away someplace safe where they could never be used again. That's what he's been tracking, that's why he went to Wonderland, that's why he couldn't tell her anything until _now_. Because he knows he can trust her now. Because she's resistant to the thrall. She's been living with him, resisting the thrall of his Occulus even when it's sitting there with her alone in a room, when the call of it's power would have been the strongest. And the Director now knows what that voice was, calling to her from across the room, promising that it could make anything she wanted real. But she resisted and now she could help him create an organization of other resistant people to help collect these relics and make the world a peaceful place. He would contact the Millers to have the base expanded to accomodate more people and they could begin recuitment and-

The Director has a lot of questions, and she'll ask them all eventually, but one is gnawing at her the most. She asks, and nearly cries as she's finally able to get an answer.

"No more static?"  
He shakes his head.  
"No more static."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "explains everything"
> 
> I really love this one because of how it parallels other fics I've read set in the canon universe between Davenport and Lucretia.
> 
> Also things having to do with betrayal, like trust or forsake and what happened with Cam, really hit Davenport hard for obvious reasons.
> 
> Inspired by Trainwreckgenerator's Tazswap AU on Tumblr http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/search/tazswap


End file.
